Season 6, Episode 2: "What Kate Does"

Kate Austin, the criminal with a heart of gold. The girl that seems to make all the wrong decisions for what she thinks are the right reasons. She breaks hearts, steals babies, and is one hell of a fugitive, but her actions can be maddening to Lost fans. But while episodes centered around Kate can be sometimes tough to get through, "What Kate Does" turns out to be a nice continuation in what will be a very interesting final season. Themes of fate and free will continue to shine, and the mysteries of the Temple and beyond on the Island grow deeper. What exactly is going on with Sayid? Is Claire really "back," or is she infected as well? And how exactly did Sawyer get his hands on that engagement ring? He went to Jared's?

To start off, let's once again examine some of the similarities of the reset story to what has happened in past seasons. Right off the bat, we pick up the flash-sideways with Kate escaping (again) at the airport by hijacking Claire's cab. We can now see that Claire is in fact pregnant, and the relationship with these two characters in the reset begins. While it certainly starts off a bit rocky - you know with Claire's life being threatened and all - Kate inevitably turns a corner after she sees a picture of a very pregnant Claire along with a little baby stuffed Shamu. She decides to double back and pick her up at the bus stop (where apparently all lost pregnant women go to after being robbed and thrown out of a cab in LA) and drives Claire to her adoption rendezvous. But the foster mother's life is a wreck, and Claire will end up keeping the baby after all. Just as we heard way back in Season 1 from the Australian psychic, Claire must be the mother of her baby. If not, very bad things will happen. Fate is intervening once again, and the baby will once again stay with Claire, for now.



The next "What happened, happened" moment comes at the hospital where Claire starts going into labor. Kate pulls in a doctor to help and low and behold, it's Ethan, or to be more specific, Dr. Goodspeed. The name is important because it shows that even in this world where the Island doesn't exist (and is under water), Ethan is still the son of Horace and Amy Goodspeed, Horace being the leader of Dharma that we saw quite a bit of last season. If you remember, Amy gave birth to Ethan on the Island thanks to Juliet's help in 1977, and Ethan joins an exclusive club of babies that are able to be born on the Island along with Rousseau's daughter Alex, and of course Claire's Aaron (the latter two being conceived off Island). An interesting combination, especially when you consider how similar Claire appears to be to Rousseau when we see her at the end of the episode.

But back to the delivery room for a moment. Ethan tells Claire that the baby is ready and can be born that night, and specifically asks her if she wants that to happen. If she were to agree, some drugs would need to be administered to ensure a safe and healthy delivery. This exchange is almost exactly the same as when Ethan and the Others captured Claire back in Season 1, and administered drugs and sedatives to her to see how it might produce a healthy on-Island birth, since such a procedure hadn't been successful in many years (likely since "The Incident.")

Season 1 "Maternity Leave"

Season 6 "What Kate Does"

However, a small difference in the reset story is that Claire initially declines the drugs (where as she was convinced to accept them in Season 1), and just as she does so the baby's heart rate flat lines. After a few tense seconds, Claire shouts out "is Aaron ok?!" and viola, the heart rate returns. Is destiny playing its hand here to ensure that certain events happen as planned? And where does the name Aaron come from? Claire even admits that she hadn't thought of a name for her baby and that it just came to her. How did she know?

That takes us to a larger association between the parallel story lines. We've now seen a few examples of our characters seemingly "knowing" or "feeling" something at critical junctions in the reset that brings them back to feelings of historical familiarity. It seems reminiscent of deja vu, a feeling of understanding that is at once extremely powerful yet entirely inexplicable. Jack has it twice on the plane, first he feels a tremendous amount of relief when the plane doesn't crash after turbulence, as if he was certain that it was going to plummet to the ocean. Then, he meets Desmond and feels strongly that they had previously met ("see you in another life, brotha"). Kate has a moment of her own in this episode when she sees Jack standing on the airport curb and is obviously hit with a powerful feeling of nostalgia.



Then, Claire seemingly knows that her baby is a boy and that it should be named Aaron, but can't explain how she came to that fact ("I don't know why I said it, um, it's like I knew it or something"). It's not a stretch to predict that these moments will continue in the reset story.

Similarly, if you look at past Island events, we have been witness to some of our characters feeling absolutely positive of what they "should" do, even when they can't explain why. Locke was a huge proponent of this action, as he was absolutely positive that (among other things) moving the Island was his mission and of critical importance. Later, Jack felt the same way when he made blowing up the Island his uncompromising goal. In both these cases, the characters weren't privy to why they needed to do so, they "just knew." Desmond may have the most obvious example, as he came out of an off-Island hiding with Penny to deliver a message to Eloise Hawking after visually receiving that message from an on-Island Daniel through a dream/time flash. Penny tried to persuade him that it was only a dream, but Desmond protested. It was more than that, it was something that clearly happened, but had not presented itself as a memory until that moment.

I don't know exactly what to make of these larger, more abstract collisions between the parallel story lines, but I'm willing to bet that they will in some way lead us to how the two stories will be resolved. These moments are shown to us with a deliberate purpose, and so far they are the only clues of any direct correlation between the two "worlds." Could the actions of one world live within the conscious of the other? Continue to be on the look out for more deja vu interactions as the season moves on.


Moving on and as mentioned in the beginning of the post, I found the Island events to be steeped in almost too much mystery to analyze properly (except for Kate ignoring Sawyer's request and following him anyways, that was entirely predictable. That's soooo Kate). The main question of course is what's going on with Sayid? At the moment, we are being led to believe that he is infected, or has been "claimed." Claimed by the MIB? Does this mean that MIB can be multiple people at once? Or instead, does he have the "sickness" that Rousseau's French crew looked to have after they were attacked by Smokie? In that case, I'd say that the "infection" is not necessarily the MIB claiming the body himself (as he is doing with Locke), but instead is a way for him to gain disciples, or followers of his mission to act out his will (maybe similar to how Richard seems to be Jacob's main disciple).

Claire fits neatly into this group as well, since when we saw her last she was in the Cabin with Christian, (who I believe was the MIB at that time), while Christian/MIB was beginning his long con on Locke, telling him to move the Island. In that scene, Locke inquires about Claire's presence in the Cabin - who was devilishly lurking in the shadows - and Christian responds, "don't worry, she's with me." Well it looks as if Sayid might be "with him" as well. But at the same time, I'm not ruling out the fact that Sayid could be Jacob as well. We are just going to have to see how this all pans out as the season moves on.

From Season 4's "Cabin Fever"

One last issue of importance on the Island, and more specifically in the Temple, is that the O6 are still extremely important to the Temple leader Dogen. He needs them to be on his side, but clearly cannot force them to submit to his will. While it seems that they are being held captive, Sawyer still leaves with little to no resistance, and Kate and Jin are even allowed to go and try and retrieve him. Simply put, they will all need to come back to the Temple on their own free will and believe in what Dogen and the Others are trying to accomplish. Back at the Temple, Jack has multiple encounters with Dogen, who tries to convince Jack to kill Sayid instead of doing it himself. Sayid needs to take the pill willingly, just as Jack needs to believe that doing so is the right thing to do.

Again, the idea of free will persists even within the web of ongoing conflict between the Losties and the Others. If you think about it, even though the Others have done some evil shit in their time, they have always manipulated their enemies to act upon their own will to carry out their nefarious plans. When Ben needed Jack to operate on his tumor, he couldn't simply force him to do so, he needed Jack to want to save his life. And on the operating table, the choice to kill or save Ben was all his own. When the O6 needed to return to the Island, they couldn't be forced to do so, they needed to return on their own terms. After Locke fell down the well and broke his leg, he received no help from Christian when asked, because moving the Island was something he needed to execute personally.

Now, Dogen needs much of the same from our Lostie friends. They will need to believe. But the question is, will their beliefs be right?


Sorry for the late post this week but it's been a little busy as of late. Hopefully you guys have a nice three day weekend to take this in and then we're right back on Tuesday with "The Substitute." Enjoy!

Tidbits:

It's Always Sunny in Otherton: Not a big revelation here, but I was pretty shocked to see "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" star Mack in this episode, playing the somewhat annoying character "Aldon," who apparently had a bit of a chip on his shoulder for Kate, who had pistol whipped him a few seasons ago. I wonder if the producers are fans of the cult hit on FX?


Hurley's question to Sayid, "are you a zombie?", held a particular significance to Lost nerds like myself, since the producers have a running joke that Season 7 will be the "zombie season." I guess you had to be there.


The baby Shamu that Kate found in Claire's luggage was the same stuffed Shamu that Aaron was holding in Season 4's "Something Nice Back Home" when he walked in on Kate and Jack arguing over Kate's secret involvement with Sawyer's daughter. It's also important to note that this scene ended with Jack shouting, "at least I'm related to him!" which proved his Brother/Sister relationship to Claire. Burn.


As always, let me know what I missed in the comments...till next time!